"Jim Carlock" writes in article dated Fri, 03 Sep 2004 02:18:00 GMT:
Okay, my question is this... if you live on the equator,
are the days and nights equal every day of the year?
http://puuoo.submm.caltech.edu/outre...ay/sunrise.htm

Yes.

If the sun is always directly above the equator,

It isn't. The Earth revolves around an axis that goes through the Sun. The
Earth rotates around a a different axis that goes through the north and
south poles. If these 2 axes were parallel, the Sun would appear to be
always above the equator, but they aren't. They differ by about 23 degrees.

http://www.equinox-and-solstice.com/..._solstice.html

The link above indicates that the longest day of the year falls
on or about June 22 (at least for the northern hemisphere). It
should be December 22 for the southern hemisphere. So with
Dec 22 being the longest day for the southern hemisphere and
Dec 22 being the shortest day for the northern hemisphere...
does any of this matter on the equator, being that on the
equator, you'd get 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night
each and every day of the year, because you'd be on the
closest spot on earth to the sun, each and every day of the
year, not taking mountains and depressions into consideration.

It's not the distance to the sun that's important but the angle that the
light hits the earth. The closer you get to perpendicular, the more light
per unit area you get. Even though the equator gets only 12 hours of
daylight, on the equinox it is more intense than on the solistice.

Being that the earth rotates on an axis, the autumnal equinox
I think is going to vary slightly for every every position away
from the equator? I think that's the lattitude.

The distance from the equator is proportional to the latitude, but the
equinox is a single moment that happens twice a year.

There is a great link here that talks about how the distance of
the earth from the sun never goes past 3% or 4% and states
that the earth is more circular in orbit than elliptical. I used to
think that the distance from the sun is what caused seasons
when I was a kid. That's not true. The link below indicates
that the earth is farthest from the sun on or about July 4th.
Very interesting coincidence!
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/news/20....asp?list17366

Another intersting area -- which is what I thought this thread would be
about when I read the subject -- is where the sun sets. If you're north of
the tropic of cancer, the sun will appear to be south of you at high noon
every day. But not at sunset! During the summer, the sun can set in the
northwest. The pathological case of this is if you're on the Arctic circle
on June 21, the sun appears to bump the horizon (set and then rise) at
midnight. And it bumps it in a spot due north of you!

-- spud_demon -at- thundermaker.net
The above may not (yet) represent the opinions of my employer.